Experimental Progress

Half a month later.

Chen Chen set down the instrument in his hands and stretched before the Class 100 clean bench, a flash of excitement appearing in his eyes.

"Clone embryo No. 30 has completed induction and can be implanted into the surrogate."

As Chen Chen spoke, he began filling out the experimental records. The recording device on his head faithfully captured every frame, and these records would become invaluable data in the future.

At this point, the experiment was still in its preliminary stage—the cloning stage. Chen Chen needed to use a micromanipulator to remove the nuclei from all thirty-six egg cells and implant different nuclei into them, creating cloned embryos.

This was commonly known as "somatic cell nuclear transfer reprogramming."

The road of cloning technology had never been smooth. From the time a German embryologist first proposed the concept of cloning in 1938, to the birth of Dolly the cloned sheep in 1996, to humanity's discovery in 2012 that caffeine could increase the success rate of reprogramming primate egg cells, human cloning technology had developed for nearly a century.

By now, cloning technology had long since matured and become commercialized. The fact that many people were willing to spend enormous sums cloning deceased pets, and that for-profit pet cloning companies had emerged, was enough to show that cloning technology was growing increasingly mature.

It was precisely because of this that Chen Chen had been able to produce dozens of SD rat cloned embryos in just half a month.

However, mature technology did not mean simple technology.

What was cloning?

There was once a Western fable:

It told of a country with a poisonous spring. Anyone who took even a sip from it would go mad and become insane.

Every subject in the country drank from that spring and fell into madness. Only the king did not drink from it, so he did not go mad along with them.

As a result, the madmen throughout the country instead believed the king had a mental problem. They tied him up and tried every possible way to cure his madness.

In the end, unable to endure their torment, the king could only drink from the spring himself and go mad alongside his people...

And cloning was the real-life reflection of that fable.

A cell contained dozens of components, including the cell membrane, cytoplasm, organelles, and nucleus. Of these, the most important was the nucleus, an organelle containing all the genetic information within the cell.

Generally speaking, before a cell could carry out any activity, it first had to report to the nucleus. Once the nucleus approved, it would activate the relevant genes, then have molecules called messenger RNA carry the genetic information out so that the relevant organelles could carry out its orders.

It could be said that within a cell, the nucleus was the king, while all the cell's other structures and components were its subjects.

But one day, scientists replaced the king—the nucleus. In particular, with an egg cell, humans removed its nucleus and stuffed the nucleus from the somatic cell of the object to be cloned into the egg cell in its place.

Then, scientists used electric currents and chemical agents to alter the egg cell's properties, turning it into a fertilized egg. It was like making everyone in the country drink from the poisonous spring, and thus the scene from the fable occurred.

The subjects all pleaded with the nucleus to issue the command for the fertilized egg to develop, but the newly appointed nucleus refused deep down. After all, it was not an egg cell nucleus. Just because they wanted it to develop a fertilized egg did not mean it would. This somatic cell nucleus would rather mutate, turn into a cancer cell, and be devoured by white blood cells than develop!

Yet as the subjects continued applying pressure, the somatic cell nucleus finally realized that it could not defy the public's outrage and had no choice but to change its stance, transforming itself into an egg cell nucleus.

At this point, the egg cell successfully developed into an embryo. The embryo would then be implanted into a surrogate's uterus, eventually giving birth to a cloned life.

And within that life flowed genes identical to those of the owner of that nucleus.

Cloning successful!

Of course, the actual process was still extremely difficult. Leaving aside the damage caused by the chemical agents, merely switching the nuclei was already equivalent to a major operation for the egg cell.

After all, the egg cell first had to have its nucleus removed, then receive a foreign nucleus. It was already fortunate enough not to die on the spot.

Only Chen Chen, who had taken NZT-48, could maintain such a high success rate.

Just then, someone knocked on the door behind Chen Chen, and Wang Wei's voice came through.

"Chen Zi, the second batch of clones was successfully born. No hidden ailments have been found for now."

Unlike Chen Chen, who was full of energy, Wang Wei's voice carried undisguised exhaustion.

"Alright, I'll be right there."

Chen Chen stood up and began clearing the workbench before him. After freezing several precious cloned embryos, he hurried toward another room.

The moment he entered, Chen Chen heard a series of squeaks. It was the cries of several newborn pups, while Wang Wei and Xia Yin stood around the cage, silently observing them.

The newborn pups were entirely red, with only two sesame-sized black dots where their eyes should have been. Like red worms, they squeaked incessantly.

"Get started. Extract the Neural Stem Cells and prepare a cell suspension."

"Alright."

Wang Wei nodded. After working together for a month, he had been completely won over by Chen Chen's skills and perseverance. If not for Chen Chen, not a single student in the entire School of Life Sciences could have accomplished this much.

Xia Yin, standing beside them, opened her mouth, looking hesitant as she gazed at the newborn pups, whose eyes had not even opened yet. "Do we really have to do it now?"

"Since you chose this profession, don't hold on to pity," Chen Chen said calmly. "As long as you maintain respect for these animals that have devoted themselves to science, that is enough."

"..." Xia Yin fell silent.

The three then began comparing the genes of the cloned pups and the original donor. Once they confirmed there were no discrepancies, they euthanized them.

The poor newborn pups had not even opened their eyes to see the world before losing their lives forever.

"Are the ice-cold PBS dishes ready?" Chen Chen asked.

"Here." Xia Yin carefully brought over several culture dishes and looked at Wang Wei. "You can begin."

"Alright."

Wang Wei took the culture dishes and began euthanizing the pups on the operating table, then removed brain tissue from their bodies.

Afterward, he placed the pups' brains into the ice-cold PBS dishes, skillfully separated the hippocampi, and put them into buffer solution. Then, as though on an assembly line, he turned around and began processing the second pup.

Chen Chen moved to Wang Wei's previous position, minced the hippocampus into tiny fragments, added 0.25% trypsin, then placed it in a 37°C incubator. He turned to Xia Yin and asked, "Is the culture medium ready?"

"Ready." Xia Yin took a test tube from the rack.

Chen Chen nodded and turned to begin working on the second culture dish Wang Wei had processed.

After waiting two minutes, Xia Yin removed the culture dish from the incubator and placed it in the centrifuge for separation. She then added culture medium and pipetted it repeatedly, forming a cell suspension.

"Beep beep beep!"

Just then, the electronic alarm clock in the laboratory went off. It was already nine o'clock at night.

"Alright, that's enough for today."

Although there was still unfinished work, Chen Chen had no intention of lingering. He set down his tools, tidied everything up, and headed out of the laboratory.

"But we only need another half hour to finish today's work, don't we?" Wang Wei asked in confusion.

"Keeping a proper schedule is the most important thing." Chen Chen shook his head and said solemnly, "If you want to stay in this line of work for the long haul, you need a healthy body."

Watching Chen Chen leave, Wang Wei and Xia Yin looked at each other.

"Chen Chen really is strange."

Xia Yin complained, "When he works, he races against the clock and is full of energy. He can handle the workload of several people by himself. But once it reaches the time he set for getting off work, he refuses to work even one second longer..."

"Maybe that's just a scientist's quirk?"

Wang Wei shook his head. "Let's clean up too. We'll continue with the rest tomorrow."

"Alright."

Xia Yin nodded, and the two of them left the laboratory one after the other.